


i'm trying to ignore the skyline

by i_was_human



Series: blurring the fact and the fiction [3]
Category: Lost in Translation (Webcomic)
Genre: Angst, Dark, Drinking, Hurt No Comfort, Inspired by Music, Internalized Homophobia, Introspection, M/M, No Dialogue, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, Whump, lapslock, no beta we die like Major Characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:07:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27807292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_was_human/pseuds/i_was_human
Summary: so i don't figure out where you-la jolla, wilbursoot
Relationships: Ahn Jaewon | Wyld/Kim Daehyun
Series: blurring the fact and the fiction [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2167329
Comments: 3
Kudos: 13





	i'm trying to ignore the skyline

**_you know it takes a lot to move me_ **  
**_so if you figure it out, tell me_ **

jaewon's grown complacent.

this, daehyun thinks, is half the struggle.

after all, it's the old adage made new - _put the frog in a lukewarm pot and slowly boil it alive_ \- and here jaewon is, painted in shades of red and violet and aching grief and despair, and here daehyun is, colored in brilliant gold and stainless white and the clear antithesis to jaewon's old, aching, bitter pain.

empathy states that it hurts to watch.

daehyun states that it can't hold a candle to what jaewon himself is feeling. 

after all, the ache of second-hand bitterness is nothing compared to the sharp sting of new betrayal, nothing compared to the stinging blisters that form on jaewon's hands as he digs himself deeper and deeper and deeper still. the ache of helplessness is nothing compared to the red smeared over his arms, the red smeared over his thighs, the bright, bright red of his hair, the color made even more brilliant by his sickly-pale skin, and daehyun-

is standing on the precipice.

he's nine numbers typed into a phone. he's watching from afar at a party, feet rooted to the ground.

he's watching, looking, waiting, but saying nothing. an unmarked turn - begging for investigation, but cold and deserted and _terrifying_.

the short answer is this: he is doing nothing, and jaewon is hurting because of it.

the long answer is this: he is a coward. daehyun is a dirty fucking coward with hundreds of words and sentences locked behind his teeth, and _it is killing him_.

because jaewon shouldn't have to do this. jaewon shouldn't have to lie, shouldn't have to pretend, shouldn't have to color this blank canvas in shades of red and violet and black. jaewon deserves better.

can daehyun do anything about it, though?

that's the gnawing question, in the end - _what can daehyun even do_? is there anything he _can_ do beyond sit and listen and keep everything he wants to say locked up while jaewon spirals deeper and deeper?

the answer circles back around to the question - an endless loop, much like the crashing of the waves on the shore.

(an endless loop, much like the way jaewon's hair turns from red to pink to blond to bitter, aching red.)

he reaches up, pulls his thumb between his teeth. it's in lieu of a guitar pick - this, he's well aware of - and his gaze drifts from the door to the blinking red lights on his nightstand.

 _2:43am_ illuminates the room, and he digs his teeth into the skin of his thumb, a faint sting shooting through the appendage.

jaewon isn't home.

he tucks his legs under his thighs, stares at the red light illuminating the room, and waits.

it doesn't take long.

at precisely 3:29am, jaewon opens the door, hair messy and lipstick smeared over his neck. his hair's pink - just barely beginning to face - and daehyun meets his eyes, gaze landing on the clock's numbers reflecting in his eyes.

3:29 ticks to 3:30 and jaewon shucks off his jacket, hopping onto his bunk and crawling into bed. daehyun stares at the clock for a moment - _3:33am_ \- and shuts his eyes, pulling his blanket over his head and trying to swallow the familiar taste of guilt.

he says nothing.

always has.

**_i trace figures on your smile lines_ **  
**_work a formula to cure me?_**

daehyun is sick.

this is not him being dramatic. this is not him being excessive, not him being wrong or hyperbolic or melodramatic. 

this is him putting a name to the traitorous _t-tmp_ of his heart, him putting a label on something he hasn't been able to name, and _it is wrong_. it - this traitorous, selfish, achingly bright song his heart sings - is _wrong_.

after all, it's a serenade in d sharp minor - cracking, breaking, deep and dark and tearing - and daehyun _cannot feel this way_.

he loves jaewon.

putting a name to it makes it no less scary.

there's always been a sense fear for the things that go bump in the night - a fear of the creeping, crawling shadows - and he's always been able to put a name to it, saying _this here is the lamp_ and _that there is a teddy bear_ and it's always helped, but the stuttering of his heart is locked somewhere between fear and love, and _he cannot feel this way_.

jaewon is his groupmate.

jaewon is a man.

jaewon is also his friend.

jaewon is someone with cracking smiles and bright-red hair, someone with bandaged arms and stick-thin legs and bitter, aching loneliness laced into his every step. jaewon is a dissonant chord, perception differing from reality, and it's _grating_ , something daehyun aches to pluck back in tune, but he _can't_.

he keeps everything behind his teeth.

grits them tight and swallows these dark, venomous feelings, and they burn going down, but _god_ does he deserve it. god, does he deserve far worse - deserves this, deserves to see jaewon in pain, even if jaewon himself doesn't feel this way - and even though he shuts his eyes, memories sear themselves into his eyelids.

the blinking of the clock - _3:29am_ \- and jaewon staring at him, just for a moment, the bedroom momentarily turned to liminal space. 

the way jaewon turned back to look at him, just for an instant, red hair mussed and eyes dull, and that traitorous, deceitful organ in his chest burst to life-

_t-tmp. t-tmp. t-tmp._

_you are in love with jaewon._

**_and i'm lonely  
_ ** **_there i said it_ **

in the most abstract sense, daehyun is lonely.

in reality, he _has_ friends - has dozens of people he could call and talk to about this - but in the abstract sense, his heart is pounding in an off-beat, silence filling the space a duet ought to occupy.

he is lonely.

and when he is lonely, he watches, and _oh_ , jaewon is so painful to watch - aching shades of crimson spilling over his blank canvas - and he sees, because _how can he not see?_ that jaewon's only adding more.

he watches, and he sees, and jaewon's painting himself with deeper and deeper shades, and _daehyun does nothing_.

never has.

it's easy to recontextualize - easy to see the _jaewon_ under _wyld_ \- but _oh_ , does daehyun sometimes wish he hadn't. _god_ , does he wish he could have kept them separate - keep the betraying _t-tmp_ of his heart buried somewhere deep down - but jaewon is small and aching and _so, so scared_ , and daehyun does nothing.

sloth is his greatest vice. always has been.

or, well, it's not even that, is it? he can pretend it's laziness all he _wants_ , but the truth is this: he is _scared_.

he's scared that he loves jaewon, scared because _that is not something boys do_ , scared because jaewon is bright and breaking and painted in so many different shades of red, and daehyun's love - traitorous, venomous, burning thing - sticks in his throat, keeping all his concerns tamped down deep. 

he loves jaewon.

it's easy enough to stay if he puts no stock in it, but daehyun has never been very good at that.

he loves with a passion, rips his heart out and places it into another's hands, and jaewon is there, bright and blazing and self-combusting, and daehyun's heart is falling down, down, down with him, and-

isn't that for the best?

not for jaewon - never for jaewon - but for himself.

maybe if his heart shatters, he'll never love again.

(somehow, he knows that isn't true.)

**_nine million people_ **  
**_i always seem to add them up_ **

the truth is this: jaewon is not actually anything special.

of course, daehyun can never believe this.

there's a stark difference between _knowing_ and _believing_ \- he knows jaewon's nothing special, knows people live as gay, _knows knows knows_ that the fragile pillars his sanity rests on are so close to crumbling - and yet he can't believe it.

perhaps it's just that he doesn't _want to_ believe it.

it burns going down, as the truth so often does - _you love a boy, you love someone who is nothing special, who is just going to die and be forgotten_ \- and daehyun knocks it back with liquor, the cheap beer burning as it goes down. 

jaewon brought them a few boxes, and daehyun's well on his way to getting absolutely _fucked_ \- the buzz numbs the burn in his chest when his gaze meets jaewon's - and he downs the rest of the can, hoping to god he can get drunk tonight.

or, well.

can he even hope to god?

the man has no patience for sinners - no patience for _him_ \- so isn't hoping to him some kind of sacrilege?

daehyun wouldn't know. he's never been religious anyways.

in any case.

jaewon's sitting at the table, hair mussed and dark eyes staring at nothing, and daehyun sidles over, taps his can with his own. 

jaewon raises his head, then, lips spit-slick and abused, and daehyun stares at him for an instant, heart racing in his chest, before he grabs jaewon's can and downs it in one gulp.

and in the next instant-

well.

jaewon's pushing him against the wall, eyes hooded and dark and achingly _wyld_ , and daehyun doesn't move as the elder's tongue slips into his mouth, instead trying to ignore the gnawing _sin_ that burns his throat.

maybe it's the cheap alcohol, maybe it's the smell of jaewon's cologne, maybe it's the way he's kissing back, but he feels like he's falling down, down, down, and he doesn't know when he'll hit the ground. 

**_i could go away_ **  
**_i could pack my things and be gone before you wake_ **  
**_you know i've tried hard to love me too_ **  
**_it always seems to fall in through_ **

by the time jaewon leaves, daehyun's still asleep.

he spares him one last glance - blond hair strewn over the sheets, eyes rimmed with dark circles - and he swallows down the faintest tremor of regret in favor of hoping daehyun doesn't remember this when he wakes.

it's better that way, he decides. better that daehyun forgets this.

better that he lives without the grief in his eyes.

it tastes bitter - knowing daehyun hates himself for this, for them, for whatever _that_ was - but he swallows it down, toeing on his shoes and pulling on a jacket.

it's cold tonight, cold and aching and biting, but he doesn't notice it. 

is it pretentious to think he's over it? jaewon thinks so.

he hails a taxi, sneakers filling with the bitterly cold water of the snow, and it pulls up, letting him climb into the back.

it's warm in the taxi. well. warmer.

he hardly notices.

**_maybe one day i'll live in la jolla_ **  
**_drinking cocktails out over the water_ **  
**_my own personal sunset_ **  
**_to give each day its own diploma_ **

he doesn't really know when he started wanting to die.

that's the problem, isn't it?

well. the problem is that he wants to die. but that problem's going to be solved in around ten to twenty minutes, so he puts his earbuds in and daydreams.

he doesn't know when he started wanting to die. doesn't know when the crushing weight of _expectations_ and _loneliness_ and _disappointment_ ground him into the dirt like this. maybe it'd be easier if he did.

in the end, it comes to the same conclusion.

he wants to die.

he wants to die, and he is _going_ to die.

it's so _fucking_ infantile, putting it like that - he wants to die, so he is _going_ to die, others be damned - but it's not that. never has been.

he just.

is it selfish to say he can't carry it anymore?

is it selfish to say he can't- he _cannot carry this anymore_?

he can't carry this anymore, and there's nowhere left to set it down, nowhere left to be him. 

after all, his last safe haven is six feet under.

 _god_ , he's so tired - so tired of being wyld, so tired of never being jaewon, so tired of wearing this too-tight leather coat that's stuck to his skin and impossible to remove. he's _so tired of being wyld_ , and he _cannot carry it anymore_.

he exhales, letting a small cloud form on the window.

soon. soon, he'll be able to rest.

**_and you know it's funny_ **  
**_amid my backseat taxi jaunts_ **

once the taxi arrives at its destination, he stops and stares for a moment.

high class.

fitting.

 _blink_ , and then he's staring at the horizon, the wind tugging at his hair and the company's roof under his feet.

there's no railing - nobody ever comes up here - so it's easy to step forwards, his socks rough against his feet.

he's so, so tired.

he's so, so tired, and the distant sunrise is just starting to filter over the horizon, and though he knows he won't go anywhere after dying, even nowhere is better than here.

he shuts his eyes, steps forwards, and falls.

it's peaceful.

(it's terrifying.)

**_i'm trying to ignore the skyline_ **  
**_so i don't figure out where you_ **

daehyun doesn't look at the city anymore.

they're in the van, and daehyun isn't looking at the city.

anywhere could be the building. anywhere could be the place jaewon jumped from.

he doesn't look at the skyline.

that doesn't mean he doesn't see it.

(after all, jaewon's imprinted on his eyelids - red and aching and burning and _missing_ \- and each breath catches on the unforgiving love in his throat, burning slower now that he's gone, but no less bright.)

**Author's Note:**

> i tripped?
> 
> i hope you enjoyed
> 
> [twit](https://twitter.com/i_was_human_) | [lit fic discord!](https://discord.gg/CNunB74)


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